Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Clareese Mitchell, who leads the church choir, is enduring pain and irritation during a service because she is menstruating. She curses the church council for decreeing that they must wear white. Clareese is angry with the men who run the church as they refuse to listen to her. She is also disgusted with Deacon McCreedy, who appeared at the hospital where Clareese is a nurse and invited himself to her home. He ate her cooking, asked her to sing for him, and then sexually assaulted her. When Deacon McCreedy reached under Clareese’s dress, however, he discovered that she was on her period and reacted with anger and revulsion, leaving without a word and continuing to shun Clareese. Clareese is cross-eyed and still unmarried, and when Pastor Everett jokes about finding husbands for the ladies of the congregation, she feels that she is being mocked. She also wonders if being married might have protected her from McCreedy’s assault.

During the portion of the service when the members of the congregation testify, Clareese is at a loss about what to say. Sometimes she witnesses what she considers to be miracles at the hospital where she works, but her most memorable interaction that week was with a man named